The biennial Trade and Sustainable Development Symposium, organised by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) and held alongside the WTO ministerial conference for over a decade, is the leading multi-stakeholder platform for intellectual enquiry and dialogue on sustainable development and the global trade and investment system. It acts as an inclusive platform outside of the WTO negotiating setting for sharing ideas, engaging in dialogue, and influencing trade policy negotiations. Drawing in participants from government, business and civil society, the Symposium helps to maintain and elaborate a global vision of sustainable development in trade and investment policymaking.

Economic transformation is crucial for the type of growth that reduces poverty, create jobs and is resilient to shocks. But many low-income countries have failed to transform successfully. Trade has nearly always been a key component in those countries that have transformed successfully. This event will unpack the role that trade has played in the process of transformation in a number of countries and regions and discuss how trade policy provisions such as those currently under discussion at the WTO can further contribute.

The Supporting Economic Transformation (SET) at ODI defines economic transformation as the process of moving from low productivity to high productivity activities, either between or within sectors. Trade, or exposure to trade, can increase productivity in existing sectors or firms as well as move resources from inefficient into efficient firms and sectors.

Multilateral trade provisions can help set the right incentives to invest, innovate, produce and trade in sectors with comparative advantage. They can also generate maintain opportunities in new sectors currently affected by global protectionism and other trade distortions. Current discussions at the WTO that might affect ET includes the elimination of subsidies in fishing, tightening disciplines on domestic support of agriculture and further provisions on digital trade and e-commerce.

Secretary for Productive Transformation, Ministry of Production of Argentina

Lucio Castro is the former Director of Economic Development at CIPPEC. Head of Public Finance and senior economist at the Department of International Trade at the firm Maxwell Stamp PLC in London. Responsible for Macroeconomic analysis and design of macro stock investment portfolio for Emerging Markets Morley Fund Management in London.
Previously, he worked in the public sector and in international organizations such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). He was a professor at the University of Tres de Febrero (UNTREF), University of San... Read More →

Strategic leader in development and trade with combined experience of over thirty years in the private sector, national government and international organisations with a track record of delivering concrete measurable results on mandate within challenging circumstances.Patricia is... Read More →

Anabel González is Senior Director of the World Bank Group’s Trade & Competitiveness Global Practice (from July 2014). In this capacity, she leads a team of 500 people to design and implement the World Bank Group's global and country agenda in the areas of trade, investment cl... Read More →

International Economic Development Group, Overseas Development Institute

Maximiliano Mendez-Parra is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Economic Development Group, Overseas Development Institute. Max is a trade economist and former trade official in Argentina. He specialises in the analysis of multilateral and regional trade policies in agr... Read More →

Principal Research Fellow and Head of International Economic Development Group, SET Programme Director, Overseas Development Institute (ODI)

Dr Dirk Willem te Velde is a Principal Research Fellow and head of the International Economic Development Group at ODI. He is the director of the Supporting Economic Transformation Programme and a Research Leader for the DFID-ESRC Growth Research Programme. He has published widel... Read More →